Dogs left in MH, owners out. (1 Viewer)

[Ridgeway]

What's the general advice on leaving dogs in a MH ? Same as cars i.e. never in hot weather (above 18degs) We've travelled with all of ours over the last 20yrs and have been very, very careful if they have ever been left in the car for the obvious reasons. Just wondering if a MH is likely to heat up as much (less glass, bigger volume) or may just take longer to heat up ?

Our current 2 dogs are getting older now and are less happy to be dragged around shops and some times we now wonder if it wouldn't be easier to leave them in the MH for 60-90mins assuming it's well vented, in the shade and with a temp sensor in, this I can easily rig up to SMS me if it gets above a certain temp.

What's people's advice on leaving dogs in a MH ?

 

[vwalan]

hi buy one of those concertina dog guards that fit the front wind up windows . the dog gets loads of air and hope fully can bite anyones fingers that try to get in . had one for years .

 

[old-mo]

Dont get quiet as hot inside a M/Home... not as compact as a car..

So a few windows cracked open should be alright...:Cool:

If not let the wife go shopping and you stay with the dogs and a nice cold beer.. :thumb:

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[Ridgeway]

had one for years .

Dog or the guard

Ah the diamond shaped gizmos, wonder if they'll work in ice cream van top hinged windows ?

 

[DESCO]

We often leave ours, but always make sure we are parked in the shade, if not left for too long no problems ours have never got too hot.

 

[jonandshell]

We have discussed this between us on many occasions!

Coachbuilt motorhomes are totally different from cars in their construction. The insulation keeps out the heat, your windows are double glazed, you can leave your rooflights opened with blinds drawn mostly across for ventilation AND shade, the list goes on.
We also have a Fiamma roof fan which we set to extract hot air from the interior whilst we are out.
The interior keeps cool, the dogs keep cool and there is always plenty of water for them.:thumb:

Your van is at more danger than the dogs in hot weather due to some ignorant do-gooder smashing a window to needlessly get the dogs out!!!:Angry:

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[philw111]

I have a small electric fan that runs off an inverter. Aimed under the table, this gives them an area that stays fairly cool even in the hottest weather:thumb:

 

[lorger]

We leave our dog in the mh when going shopping and stuff if its a warm day we close all the window blinds and open the roof vents leave him loads of water and if really warm we leave a small 12v fan on we bought from halfords.

 

[slobadoberbob]

89 degree in our RV today

89 degrees in our RV today.

I would never leave Ezzie in it when it is warm.. regardless how many vent or windows.. would not even trust the air con... our's Ezzie's well being is more important than to go off with her in the RV on her own.


Bob

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[Janine]

Just use your common sense! I have been leaving my dogs in the MH for the last 20 years with no problem.

As said, pull the blinds down and open the roof vents. Leave them access to plenty of water. The vans are well insulated. It'll be just as hot in your kitchen at home, I guess.

Caravan Club rules say that you can't leave dogs unattended in vans on site, but, there again, I've never had a problem as they are very quiet.

 

[Phill D]

Just use your common sense! I have been leaving my dogs in the MH for the last 20 years with no problem.

As said, pull the blinds down and open the roof vents. Leave them access to plenty of water. The vans are well insulated. It'll be just as hot in your kitchen at home, I guess.

Caravan Club rules say that you can't leave dogs unattended in vans on site, but, there again, I've never had a problem as they are very quiet.

this is good sensible advice, we do the same whenever we have to leave the dog in the motorhome.. we are also able to arm the alarm ( Strikeback from Eddie vanbitz ) with him in just in case some scrote decides to force entry. :thumb:

 

[maz]

Living in the van, there will always be occasions when my dog has to be left on her own for a short while. If it's warm weather I open the rooflights and pull the flyscreens across, and close the blinds on the sunny side of the van. Insulation levels are good and the van seems to keep relatively cool.

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[Ridgeway]

So overall seems OK with good common sense applied. Neither of ours are a particularly heat intolerant breed (Border Terrier and H. Vizsla) although both are in their "later" years so we're a little more cautious. The roof fan or table fan idea sounds good will look into that and also a basic min max therm to see what temps it gets to when we're out. 50% of the time No1 daughter stays behind as she's getting to that age (15) where she can..... amongst other thingsoh: So this does help although there's always some occasions when we all want to go out together.

So the plan:

Window blinds down (windows closed)
Roof vents open but with shades closed
Front windscreen cover (exterior type) on
Water x 2
Thermometer
Parked in shade
Fan some where

The Border frankly couldn't care if he was left all day (conditions permitting) although the HV is a little sticky still.

 

[pappajohn]

my advise is DONT !!!!

you haven't seen the state of my door and side window fly screens.
and the rear fly screen aluminium frame was torn from the window in a frenzy to get outdoors to passing dogs.

we left him in the RV for an hour while we went for a beer in the Oswestry clubhouse.

doesn't matter how placid a dog is, it can be alarmed/afraid if left alone in the van.
believe me, Harry is a boisterous dog in company but has never chewed or damaged anything before :Sad:

 

[Parcverger]

Now look at the other thread on site at present...posted by Sloberdoberbob

"Sue was loading some bits ready for our trip to France and said the temperature was 89 degree in the bathroom and 85 degree's in the main habitation area.

So we have just switched on the air conditioner to bring it down to 70 degrees.

Very muggy and warm in Tunbridge Wells this afternoon... thunder in the air.

Bob "

Be VERY careful if you are leaving animals in any vehicle

Bob

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[Janine]

Well...if you don't have the common sense to know when NOT to leave them in the vehicle, you shouldn't have dogs in the first place!

 

[Ridgeway]

All good advice and worth listening to. Just really trying to way up the difference between cars and MH and what has been peoples experience in practice.

 

[Geo]

Cheap and not so cheap solutions, look at the price hike when you put motorhome specific models in the description

Link Removed andLink Removed

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[Ridgeway]

OK ordered a Fiamma Turbo fan kit. Will carry out some testing with temp probes whilst it's parked up at the storage site to see how the temp evolves, inside and out. The MH at storage is parked right in the sun (not good for the van) but good for the test, will need 2 days of consecutive weather to capture the data on my PC, will be interesting !

 

[slobadoberbob]

I have a few choices

I could... leave a window open each side and allow air to cross the vehicle

I could leave the main door open and just use the fly screen door on the RV

I could leave the roof vent open


All the above have a risk even with the VanBitz external alarm set.

I could open the roof vent and a window that is on the shade side then set the fantastic vent in the roof to draw air through

Will there be an electrical fault while I am away? that stops the fan running.

I could (if connected to EHU) shut everything, pull the blinds down and run the aircon and hope the site tree does not fuse when someone else plugs in - which is bound to happen while I am away from the RV...


OR

I could take my third member of the family with me.

Given the in side temperature of the RV (Which is very well insulated and has a fair size volume of air room (more than most Europeans could have) ... as said it has been in the high 80's for a few days this past week. I think I will take Ezzie with me.

I once left her in the RV when we first had the alarm put in to go into a supermarket.. set the alarms and forgot we had to set the night setting.. got 100 yards away.. and everything went off.. Ezzie was inside on top of where the forms are and we have a second set of horns fitted.. I do not think it did her any good.

Now one of us stays at the RV while the other does the shopping to save Ezzie any risk.

By the way late last week I was in and out of the house and the RV.. left the habitation door open and the heat still was well in to the high 80's and that was with air passing in to the RV...

Me? just would not risk part of my family. Does not matter someone has got away with it for 20 years... only has to be once and that once could be the next time it is done.

Bob

 

[jonandshell]

I think the key to all this is to ensure the temperature inside the MH does not exceed that of outside.
To achieve this, you need to ensure free movement of air and shade from the sun, Ie, roof blinds and sunward window blinds closed, roof vents opened and possibly a ventilation fan running.
I makes no sense at all to assume your dog will suffer under these conditions. If that were the case, dogs would be keeling over every time they went out in the garden if it got hotter than 25 degrees outside!
Besides, do you die in your sleep in your motorhome on a hot summer morning? I bet your dog is still alive and wagging his tail when you wake up too!

A sealed car in the sun, as previously mentioned, is a totally different proposition to a vented, insulated, sun-reflective (white!) motorhome parked in the sun!

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[eddie]

In the UK we feel happy leaving Shadow and Sabre two long haired German Shepherds in our RV with three ceiling fans on low, with a couple of (too small for anyone to get in) sliding windows open. With the fans set to "suck" out the cooling effect is very good.

Abroad, say in a supermarket we leave the genny running and the Air Conditioning on. We also have "SabreSafe! lol I have a mains failiure device that sends me a SMS txt should the mains fail so we know that we have to get back to the RV.

On a site, as we normally stay by water, the dogs are normally fine to be left a while once they have had a good swim, because by then their knackered and cool and only want to find a place in the shade to flop down and have a nice snooze! A bit like me really, but my wife insists on waking me up

Eddie

 

[slobadoberbob]

so what is the sabre safe device.. I dread to ask

In the UK we feel happy leaving Shadow and Sabre two long haired German Shepherds in our RV with three ceiling fans on low, with a couple of (too small for anyone to get in) sliding windows open. With the fans set to "suck" out the cooling effect is very good.

Abroad, say in a supermarket we leave the genny running and the Air Conditioning on. We also have "SabreSafe! lol I have a mains failiure device that sends me a SMS txt should the mains fail so we know that we have to get back to the RV.

On a site, as we normally stay by water, the dogs are normally fine to be left a while once they have had a good swim, because by then their knackered and cool and only want to find a place in the shade to flop down and have a nice snooze! A bit like me really, but my wife insists on waking me up

Eddie

OK I dread to ask Eddie was is the sabresafe device? is it a take on a movement alarm sms type gadget?

Bob... no the feeling of being mad to wake up or move if you doze off.. it amazes how Sue can find a job for me to do.:Blush:

 

[eddie]

Sabre safe is a Van Bitz production LOL In essence it is a TVM800 pager tracker running from a small mains transformer. If the mains fails, the TVM800 switches to is own battery pack and sends mains failure messages to all our phones.

So a small grey box that plugs into a 13amp socket, and is activated by sending and "ON" or "OFF" message from one of the programmed phones.

The unit is designed when turned off for example to send a confirmation to message to all programmed phones on the system so there is no room for mistake.

It does make us happier knowing that if we want to go to the pool for the afternoon, that after a long walk the dogs are asleep in the camper, nice and cool and happy. Makes the difference of relaxing and not in my opinion as it is muggins that normally gets sent back on his bike to "check the dogs!

Eddie

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[Ridgeway]

Sabre safe is a Van Bitz production LOL In essence it is a TVM800 pager tracker running from a small mains transformer. If the mains fails, the TVM800 switches to is own battery pack and sends mains failure messages to all our phones.

So a small grey box that plugs into a 13amp socket, and is activated by sending and "ON" or "OFF" message from one of the programmed phones.

The unit is designed when turned off for example to send a confirmation to message to all programmed phones on the system so there is no room for mistake.

It does make us happier knowing that if we want to go to the pool for the afternoon, that after a long walk the dogs are asleep in the camper, nice and cool and happy. Makes the difference of relaxing and not in my opinion as it is muggins that normally gets sent back on his bike to "check the dogs!

Eddie

Sounds very cool.

Think I met see some more "fishy" applications for this as well. Expect some interest from my reef keeping friends where power outs are just about the worst nightmare scenario.

Off to your website NOW !!!!

Thanks

 

[Ridgeway]

Can't find the "Sabresafe" on the Vanbitz website, anyone ?

 

[eddie]

Can't find the "Sabresafe" on the Vanbitz website, anyone ?

LOL No sorry you misunderstood.

We have Sabresafe which is our mains failure device for our dogs Sabre and Shadow.

James that works for us has "BluSafe" in his RV and his dog is called....Blu

These are systems that we get our guys to build for our own use, they're not CE marked for approved so we do not attempt to retail them: Sorry

Eddie

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[Ridgeway]

LOL No sorry you misunderstood.

We have Sabresafe which is our mains failure device for our dogs Sabre and Shadow.

James that works for us has "BluSafe" in his RV and his dog is called....Blu

These are systems that we get our guys to build for our own use, they're not CE marked for approved so we do not attempt to retail them: Sorry

Eddie

oh:

Market potential ?????

 

[eddie]

oh:

Market potential ?????

LOL I wish but it would retail about £400 with all the bits we cram into a tiny little box to make sure our pets are safe Ergo: Our wives are happy Ergo: We can enjoy our holidays!

I will search the market to see it anyone makes a comparable product and let you know if we can find anything

Regards

Eddie

 

[Ridgeway]

LOL I wish but it would retail about £400 with all the bits we cram into a tiny little box to make sure our pets are safe Ergo: Our wives are happy Ergo: We can enjoy our holidays!

I will search the market to see it anyone makes a comparable product and let you know if we can find anything

Regards

Eddie

Thanks.

By the way, me searching for Sabresafe on your website has caused me to realize how many great MH products you have, think I've found myself a new supplier:thumb:

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